Chapter 23: Legacy Manipulation

Daxton looked different at night.

Not softer. Not quieter.

Sharper.

Like the shadows came alive when no one was watching—trading secrets in the dark corners, whispering truths the daylight was too cowardly to carry.

Sonia sat on the roof above the east library, legs hanging over the edge, hoodie up, notebook open across her lap. The pages were filled with scrawls. Plans. Crossed-out timelines. Circled names.

One name now had a thick, dark line through it: Claire Lexton.

She had confirmed it an hour ago.

A library server, buried in the database backup logs, had a subfolder. Misnamed. Misfiled.

Inside it: a timestamped recording.

Claire. Talking to someone off-camera.

“The girl thinks she’s surviving. Let her. That’s how we control them. Give them a story, and they’ll die trying to make it true.”

Sonia had played it twice.

Then she saved it. Not to the cloud. Not to her school email. But to a jump drive hidden in the hollow heel of her combat boot.

Because if Daxton taught her anything, it was this:

You didn’t just gather ammo.

You made sure they never saw it coming.

---

10:55 PM — Boys’ Dormitory Wing

Eric met her by the back stairwell.

He didn’t ask why she called.

Didn’t flinch when she pulled him into the alcove where the surveillance camera had been disabled weeks ago. He leaned back against the brick wall, hands in his jacket pockets, looking at her like he was trying to memorize the way she moved.

“Busy night?” he asked.

She stepped closer. “Too quiet.”

“That's usually when Daxton bites hardest.”

She didn’t answer. Just reached into her jacket and pulled out the jump drive.

“I have proof,” she said. “Claire Lexton. She’s involved in the legacy manipulation. And she knows who I am. Or thinks she does.”

Eric stared at it. Then up at her.

“You sure you want to go public with this before Gala Night?”

“No. But I’m not waiting for permission anymore.”

A beat passed.

Then he said quietly, “You know you don’t have to do this alone, right?”

“I know.”

She looked at him.

Really looked.

Not through the haze of anger or the fear of being found out.

Just him.

“I never asked you,” she said, “why you never walked away when you could’ve.”

He smirked. But it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Because you were the first person at Daxton who looked me in the face and didn’t see a legacy.”

Sonia stepped in until their foreheads touched.

His hands moved to her hips.

Hers to the back of his neck.

This time, the kiss wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t hiding.

It was slow. And real.

A breath taken before everything changed.

---

11:55 PM — The Roof Again

Sonia returned alone.

The sky above her was full of stars, cold and silent.

Below her, Daxton was breathing lies like oxygen.

She checked her phone one more time.

A single Cartel message blinked into view.

“Midnight. Clock tower. Final hour.”

Of course.

She snapped her notebook shut and stood, wind biting her cheeks.

Five minutes to midnight.

And she was going to face them.

Not as Silas.

Not as Sonia hiding behind Silas.

But as the Vale they hadn’t planned for.

Because now, she wasn’t the secret.

She was the reckoning.